PPG Cleveland plant seeing solid growth

Demand for vehicles, energy-saving paints leading to new jobs

Products that help automakers save time, energy and money are driving growth at PPG Industries Inc.'s Cleveland plant.

The site serves as PPG's largest automotive coating plant in the United States and its global technical center for automotive coatings, churning out gallons upon gallons of vehicle paint — and plenty of original product ideas — each year. Since 2011, the Cleveland site, at 3800 W. 143rd St., has hired more than 130 employees, said plant manager Keith H. Schneider. After the recession ended, the auto industry “roared back,” Schneider said, noting that even more carmakers turned to the United States after the tsunami in Japan in March 2011.

And Schneider expects the growth to continue. The company's paint products for OEMs might make the manufacturing process simpler for automakers, but there's a lot of complexity behind the scenes that drives the need for more labor. And, said technical director USCA (U.S./Canada) Keith Johnston, the cars on the road today are more than 10 years old, on average.

“There's still pent-up demand,” Johnston said.

That all means Pittsburgh-based PPG still is hiring in Cleveland. That growth is striking when compared to where the plant was a few years ago.

During the lowest point of the recession, the Cleveland plant employed less than 500 people, manager of corporate communications Mark Silvey said in an email. The current employment level of 700 is higher than pre-recession levels. Schneider said the plant moved to being a 24/7 operation in July 2012.

And PPG has been investing in the Cleveland site to increase capacity going forward. Silvey said the company is building a 29,000-square-foot plant to increase production capacity to support current and future demand from customers. The company would not share the cost of the new building, but in the past five years, PPG has invested about $15 million in the Cleveland site, Silvey said. PPG makes a variety of products, including solvent and water-based primers and base coats, from raw materials like resins and colorants at the Cleveland plant.

It also tests products to customer's specifications on site. The new building, which Schneider said is expected to be done in the fourth quarter, will join more than 50 buildings on the site's 47 acres. Schneider said the plant was built in 1907 and was acquired by PPG in 1947.

“We are very pleased and excited to see a business like PPG Industries experience such growth and success,” said Tracey Nichols, the city of Cleveland director of economic development, in an emailed statement to Crain's. “They are a great manufacturer, and this increase in employment is a positive for our economy and the community. We look forward to see what PPG will do in the future.”

Bright ideas

In Cleveland, PPG has about 400 employees in operations; there are about 300 employees on the technical side in either customer-specific teams or core technology teams. The latter works on taking general concepts from PPG's research headquarters in Allison Park, near Pittsburgh, and making them usable for the customer-focused teams.

One of the important components of the work at the Cleveland site is in the color applications department on the technical side of the business. PPG's job is to come up with new colors that push the envelope and help its customers better position themselves in the market.

The color-related projects begin about three years in advance, said color technologist John Zerucha. The Cleveland location is often tasked with taking the “emotion” a company wants and turning it into a car color. Zerucha said that one-on-one relationship makes the company --unique.

PPG launches a new color technology every year, working with PPG's main research and development team and with individual customers to get the specific look they want, said Bill Eibon, global color technology director. In 2015, PPG will introduce the SpectraPearl line, which takes a three-coat process of base, mica and color and turns it into one base coat. That makes the product less labor-intensive, Eibon said.

The paint on a car might seem like a purely aesthetic choice for a typical consumer, but a lot goes into making that ruby red sparkle. Vehicles are pretreated and covered with ultrathin layers of products such as primer, sealants, base coats and clear coats, many of which are baked on in large ovens. That process takes up a lot of energy, increasing costs for automakers. And the trend of automakers using lower-weight materials like aluminum and carbon fiber to make their cars has introduced challenges for paintmakers to overcome.

“It's a good technology to be in if you like to solve problems,” Johnston said.

Out of the oven

Those problems give companies like PPG opportunities for innovation. Take the energy consumption issue, for example. Johnston said the time spent baking the paint on the cars in the ovens uses a lot of energy, as does keeping the airflow moving in the spray booths.

PPG's B1:B2 compact paint system helps address that expensive energy use. The product, which was introduced in 2008, essentially combines primer, base coat and clear coats into two steps instead of three. That allows manufacturers to skip or significantly reduce a round in the oven, Johnston said. Overall, the product helps to lower vehicle weights, CO2 emissions, energy consumption and capital investment, he said. Companies can retrofit their current paint shops to use B1:B2 or to build new.

Johnston said compact processes are growing overall and rapidly becoming the conventional process for painting vehicles. In just the last five years, compact processes, including B1:B2, have already grown to make up about one-fourth of the volume at the Cleveland plant, Johnston said. He thinks the B1:B2 product puts PPG in the lead, but he said none of the company's competitors are ignoring the trend.

Morning Roundup

Business headlines from Crain's Cleveland Business and other Ohio newspapers — delivered FREE to your inbox every morning. Sign up for the Morning Newsletter.